Barbarian Lover

Kira

Two caves over, I hear the wet sound of sex, and a woman's whimper. "Oh God yes, like that," moans Nora. "Spank me like that."

A soft thwack echoes in my translator, and I groan and cover the hated thing with both my hands. I try to roll over on my side and push it into the pillow I've made out of scraps, but all that does is shove the translator harder into my ear canal, and it sends a shooting pain through my skull. So, I flip onto my back and stare up at the rocky ceiling of the bachelorette cave.

"Just like that, my big, strong, sexy beast," Nora cries again.

"Nnnngggghhhh," says her big, strong, sexy beast (also known as Dagesh). To make matters worse, I hear another woman giggle, and then Stacy and Pashov-who, because of crowding, share a cave with Nora and her mate-go at it, too.

Gaah.

I hate this translator. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I push the pillow over my face, ignoring the fuzzy fur that sticks to my mouth. It wouldn't be too bad if it just made every conversation happen in stereo as it translates it. Oh no. It also amplifies everything. So I hear every ass slap, every moan, every grunt, every kiss . . . everything.

And the tribal caves are chock-full of people mating lately. With us humans that crashed here, we ended up having to take on what the aliens call a khui. It's a symbiont that allows us to live on the planet without the atmosphere killing us. Of course, one of the side effects of the khui is that it decides who and when you mate, and there's no going around it.

Considering that the tribe of alien men-known as sa-khui-outnumber the alien women four to one, I'm not surprised that mating after mating has happened. Out of the twelve human survivors dumped here, six have mated.

I'm . . . not one of them.

It's hard not to feel like a reject at times because my khui is silent. When it finds you the perfect mate, it starts to vibrate. It's a bit like purring, but more songlike. The aliens call it "resonating," and a male will only resonate to his female and vice versa. And despite the insta-mating, everyone that has hooked up is blissfully happy. Georgie adores her alien, Vektal, who's the leader of the tribe. My friend Liz is fiercely protective of her mate, Raahosh. Stacy and Marlene and even weepy, terrified Ariana love their men. And it's clear that Nora is into her mate, if the sounds of sexy spanking are any indication.

All the "leftover" girls-aka the unmated ones-are piled into a cave together. I was lucky enough to get the nook in the corner with a curtain for privacy. Not that it does much to muffle the sounds. I can still hear everything . . . and I can also hear when someone sneaks out to visit a guy, like Claire is currently doing.

Claire's one of the tube girls, so I don't know her as well as some of the others. When we were captured by aliens, several were held in stasis in pods stuck into the wall, oblivious of their surroundings. The rest of us-Liz, Georgie, me, and a few others-were crammed into the dirty, crowded hold like animals and lived there for weeks. You bond when you're in a situation like that, and I miss them.

I don't know Claire as well as I know them. I haven't bonded with her over weeks of hugging to share warmth and melting snow just to have something to drink. In a way, I almost resent the tube girls because they had it easy while the rest of us were scraping by to survive. It's not their fault, and they're just as shocked and traumatized by the alien abduction as we are. We just had it worse for longer.

I call a mental image of Claire to mind. She's pretty, with a soft, downy cap of white-blonde hair cut in a pixie style that frames her small face perfectly. She's extremely quiet and isn't prone to excessive weeping like Ariana is. And she didn't resonate.

So why she sneaks out to fuck one of the aliens, I have no idea. I don't know which one it is, either, but it concerns me. Has she been pressured? Led to believe that she has to give up her body in order to have safety? Are the single men here in the cave too direct and the girls afraid to turn them away?

I make a mental note to talk to her in the morning. I feel responsible for all the girls here. I was the first one to be let out of the stasis pods, so I feel like I'm the most senior. I've turned into the den mother of our human girls, even though Georgie's our unofficial leader. And I worry about them being taken advantage of. The fact is, even though Vektal's people have taken us in with open arms, we are still strangers to their customs and their world. It doesn't hurt to be cautious.

As the sound of more sex starts up again, I clamp the pillow against my translator to muffle sound and wait for everyone to fall asleep.

I donÕt actually fall asleep until late, and so when I wake up, IÕm bleary-eyed and yawning. The translator surgically attached to my ear aches from pressing on it all night, and IÕm exhausted. I shuffle out of bed and go to sit near the firepit in the center of the bachelorette cave. MeganÕs poking at the fire with a stick, while Claire is toasting nuggets of raw meat. ThereÕs not a lot of vegetables on this ice planet, so our meals consist of meat, fish, and more meat. The only berries we know of are used for washing. ThereÕs a pounded gruel in storage thatÕs saved for travel rations, and herbs for teas. Other than that, itÕs meat, meat, meat. Sometimes raw, sometimes cooked, depending on your taste buds. Liz eats hers raw like the hunters do, but I canÕt bring myself to try it. IÕm a wuss.

I sit next to Claire and draw my legs up. "Morning."

"Actually I'm pretty sure it's early afternoon," Megan says. She examines the burning tip of her twig, and then sticks it in the fire again. Megan is normally a pretty positive one, with encouraging words no matter how bleak the situation. But since we came to the alien caves, she's been . . . withdrawn. Quiet.

I worry about her, too.

Claire wordlessly offers me a stick and then a large, stone plate covered in gobs of raw meat. I gingerly spear a few pieces for my breakfast and then hold them over the fire. "You hungry, Meg?" I ask.

"Megan ate hers raw," Claire whispers.

Megan just gives me a thin smile.

"You've got a stronger stomach than me," I say. I'm no good at being the cheerleader.

"Tastes like nothing when it's cooked," Megan says, and jabs at the fire again.

She's not wrong. With the khui in our bodies, certain things about our physiology are changing. Smells are less strong-not a bad thing, given that the cave is built around a hot spring that reeks of sulfur. Taste is also less strong. All the sa-khui eat their meat raw and their travel rations heavily spiced. Some humans have adapted. Some of us haven't.

I push my kebob over the flames.

"Aehako came by this morning," Megan comments, poking at a coal with her stick.

"I'm not interested in Aehako," I say pointedly, and then nibble on a chunk of my breakfast.

"He's interested in you." She looks up at me. "If you mated him, you'd get your own cave at least."

I can feel my forehead setting in a frown. "I didn't resonate to him."

"Doesn't mean you can't hook up." Megan is serious.

I'm shocked. "I'm not going to sleep with a guy just because it'd get me a cave. Besides, where would we go? There are no more caves!" I gesture around us. "People are sleeping in the storage rooms as it is."

Megan shrugs. "Might not be a bad thing to have a guy looking out for you here, like Vektal does for Georgie. And Aehako's nice."

I feel my face flushing with embarrassment. Aehako is nice. And handsome, for an alien. And flirty. And . . . I didn't resonate to him, so none of it matters. She thinks Vektal protects Georgie, but Georgie's pretty dang capable on her own.

And it doesn't matter because they resonated to each other. Now they're mates and stuck like glue, and Georgie's pregnant.

Claire's silent at this exchange, but talking about men gives me the approach I need. I choke down another cooked chunk of tasteless meat and give Megan a meaningful look, asking her to leave for a few. She gets up and heads back to her bunk, bundling in the furs and turning to the wall. I'll have to deal with that, too, I think. Soon.

Instead, I touch Claire's arm. "Can we talk?"

A wary look crosses her pixie face. She nods.

I gesture at the translator jutting out of my ear. It's a bit like a conch shell made of metal that sticks out of the side of my head. "I told you what this does, right?"

Again, Claire nods.

"Did I mention that it also allows me to hear a lot of stuff? More than your average person would?"

"Like . . . ?" Her voice is a mere whisper.

I lean in. "Like girls that aren't mated going to visit men at night."

Her face flushes an angry red and she jumps to her feet. "You think you're my mother?"

"What? I-no! I just-"

"I'm an adult," she says, her fists clenched, and for a moment, I think she's going to hit me. I'm so surprised by her anger I can only stare at her. "I can have sex for sex's sake, you know. I can do what I want. And excuse me if I'm trying to find a little fucking comfort in a bad situation!"

"Claire, please. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. That no one's coercing you-"

"Not all of us are stuck-up prudes like you," she huffs. She flings her cooked meat into the fire, uneaten, and then storms away out of the cave.

I'm left behind, my mouth hanging open slightly from that outburst. Wow. My feelings are a little hurt, but I'm mostly just shocked to hear such a violent outburst from such a small, timid person.

Not all of us are stuck-up prudes like you.

Ouch.

"That went well," Megan comments, rolling over in her bed to look at me.

"What's wrong with her?"

"The same thing that's wrong with all of us rejects," Megan says. "She's just trying to find a place for herself."

I bristle a little at her words. "We're not rejects."

Her shoulders shrug. "We didn't resonate. You can't help but feel a little rejected over that."

I did . . . but I also knew why I hadn't. "Don't be discouraged," I tell her. "If you want a family, I am sure at some point you'll resonate for someone. The healer said that sometimes these things take time." Which also explained why I hadn't resonated, but I keep that thought to myself.

She makes a soft snorting noise. "I know why I didn't resonate, Kira. You don't have to try and make me feel better."

"What do you mean?"

She sits up in her nest of furs, and for a moment, the expression on her face is incredibly sad. "I was pregnant, remember?" Her hand touches her stomach. "They sucked it out like it was nothing. And mind you, it was unplanned. Just a stupid night at the club that led to drunken sex. I don't even know the guy's last name."

I say nothing. How can I judge? The life we left behind seems so very long ago.

"But I still think about it," she says in a soft voice. "I still wonder about it." She looks away for a moment, then blinks rapidly. "But I think maybe my khui knows my body isn't ready for another child yet. So maybe it's giving me time before it puts me back on the horse."

"Oh." I don't know what else to say.

"And Josie has an IUD," Megan says. "I think that's why she hasn't resonated. Maybe the other girls are on some sort of birth control. I'm starting to think that all of us that didn't resonate just aren't fertile." She looks at me. "You on the shot?"

I shake my head.

"Huh." She shrugs. "So, yeah. Josie hasn't said, but she's scared that someone's going to figure out that she has an IUD and can't get pregnant, and she doesn't know how they'll react. I can't really blame her for trying to integrate herself."

I say nothing. Josie has been working herself to the bone, learning how to tan, and weave, and everything else she can think of. I thought she just had a lot of nervous energy to channel. God. I truly am clueless. Of course she's scared. We all are.

These alien men are interested in us because of what we represent. We're wombs. We're a chance for family. If we can't give them that . . . at what point do they stop feeding us? Stop housing us?

Suddenly, the walls of the cave feel very narrow and enclosing. I breathe hard. "I . . . think I need to take a walk," I tell Megan. I have to get out of here. I'm starting to feel trapped again. The walls feel as if they're closing in on me. Have we traded one captivity for another?

What are they going to do when they find out that I'm sterile? That when my appendix burst as a child, it infected my ovaries and I won't ever have children?

What will happen to me then?

Aehako

I see Kira's small form hurry out of the caves, and I automatically follow her, a predator stalking its prey.

She's fascinated me since the beginning, this Kira. Ever since we rescued them from the black cave they were hiding in, I have been drawn to the human with the melancholy eyes and the strange device protruding from her ear. I thought perhaps that I would resonate to her, but my khui remains silent.

My cock, however, pays attention when she is around. It comes to life when she brushes a lock of brown hair behind her small, perfect, unadorned ear. It twitches in response when she gives one of her rare smiles to the other human women. And when she flushes and hurries away from me? It ignites the predator inside me.